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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29662344">a pinch of salt in the wound (and you'll be fine)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending'>wordbending</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Undertale (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Codependency, Gaslighting, Manipulation, Mental Health Issues, Obsessive Behavior, Other, Unhealthy Relationships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 22:49:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,069</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29662344</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/wordbending/pseuds/wordbending</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There was nobody else here, because you’d done an insane, stupid, ridiculous thing. You’d snuck out alongside Chara and taken, by yourselves, the River Person, to your old house in what people were already starting to call the Ruins.</p><p>It wasn’t like you’d ever normally sneak out. You were, as Chara would put it, a “patented Good Boy,” and you’d never once left the safety of your parent’s nest without them watching you like a Loox.</p><p>But... it was different with Chara. It was always different with Chara. If Chara said “jump,” you’d say “how high?” If Chara said “jump off a cliff,” you might hesitate for a bit, but then you’d say “which cliff?” All if it meant that, maybe, just maybe, they’d let you jump into their arms.</p><p>-----</p><p>Chara gets hurt, and Asriel wants nothing more than to save them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Chara/Asriel Dreemurr</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>37</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a pinch of salt in the wound (and you'll be fine)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a fic about the unhealthy, darker aspects of Chara and Asriel's relationship - it's about single-minded obsession, Chara manipulating and gaslighting Asriel, severe codependency, and generally these kids being A Little Bit Fucked Up. It also has descriptions of severe injuries to a child and self-harm. Please do not read if you do not feel you can read about these ideas or that they are triggering for you.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Asriel,” you hear a voice say - Chara’s voice, because <em>who else </em>would it be. For one thing, nobody but Chara calls you “Asriel” instead of “dearest one” or “my son.”</p><p>For a second thing, there was nobody else here, because you’d done an insane, stupid, ridiculous thing. You’d snuck out alongside Chara and taken, by yourselves, the River Person, to your old house in what people were already starting to call the Ruins.</p><p>It wasn’t like you’d ever normally sneak out. You were, as Chara would put it, a “patented Good Boy,” and you’d never once left the safety of your parent’s nest without them watching you like a Loox.</p><p>But... it was different with Chara. It was <em>always </em>different with Chara. If Chara said “jump,” you’d say “how high?” If Chara said “jump <em>off a cliff,” </em>you might hesitate for a bit, but then you’d say “which cliff?” All if it meant that, maybe, just maybe, they’d let you jump into their arms.</p><p>So when Chara had asked you to sneak out to your old house, you hadn’t hesitated for a moment. You’d packed a few things to do and a few snacks, because you didn’t think you’d be gone for very long, and Chara had done the same, and then you’d slipped out of the house without a thought. If your parents noticed, they probably thought you were going to the garden.</p><p>But you don’t know what you were expecting in the old house. Something about being alone with Chara, without your parents watching you, made a funny feeling flutter around right in the pit of your stomach... but it turned out to be boring. Chara didn’t talk to you, or read books with you, or do much of anything, really. They were so frustratingly, annoyingly, <em>enchantingly </em>mysterious - it drove you to them as much it drove you up the wall.</p><p>So, when they spoke up with your name, you perked up from your place on the floor reading a book about astronomy you’d read a hundred times.</p><p>“Yeah, Chara?”</p><p>“Let’s go explore,” they said, their expression a blank smile, as always.</p><p>For the first time maybe ever, you hesitated. The Ruins were full of puzzles and traps, which you knew like the back of your soul, but Chara didn’t. If they got hurt, somehow, your mother wouldn’t be around to heal them.</p><p>“I don’t know, Chara,” you said carefully, frowning. “It’s kind of dangerous... we shouldn’t leave the house.”</p><p>“Really? But, it’d be fun.” Their smile becomes a little softer, sadder. “You... <em>want</em> to have fun with me, don’t you, Ree?”</p><p>“Of course I do!” you respond instantly, and that’s it, you’ve fallen right into<em> their</em> trap.</p><p>“Then let’s go,” Chara says before you can say ‘but’, turning on their heel, and you leap to your feet and hurry to follow them, because that’s just how things are with Chara.</p>
<hr/><p>Of course it went wrong. Of course it went horribly, horribly wrong, in almost the worst way it could go wrong short of Chara actually <em>dying. </em>Which they <em>still might, </em>for all you know!</p><p>You drag Chara up the stairs and into the house, your legs wobbling even with their light weight. Everything about this situation is unspeakably horrifying - you had taken your sweater off, cut off the lower half of their left pants leg with their knife, and wrapped your sweater as tight as you could around the wound like Chara had told you to do, but they’re losing a lot of that red stuff humans are made of (blood?). And they’re fading in and out of consciousness so you can’t hold them up and help them walk anymore, and their left leg is all limp and... wobbly, like a spaghetti noodle, and while them being unconscious is better than them <em>screaming, </em>which is a sound you don’t want to ever hear again, they’re going to die, they’re going to die and it’s your fault, <em>it’s your fault, <strong>it’s your fault...</strong></em></p><p>Slowly, you make your way down the hall, Chara leaking blood from beneath your now drenched, crimson sweater the whole way, and reach your room. You try kicking the door, but only hurt your own foot, so you gently set Chara down and open the door the easy way before dragging them in and using all your strength to lift them up and place them onto your bed.</p><p>For some reason, you expect that to be the end of it, because after all, it took so long to get here, and this was your goal, to get them home and onto your bed... but then you see the red pool slowly spreading around the covers of your bed, around their leg, and you realize with no small amount of horror that if they do die now, it’ll be because <em>you didn’t save them.</em></p><p>There’s only one thing to do. There’s only one thing to do and it’s to run as fast as you can to New Home and get your parents. Get your mother, get your father, even get Dr. Gaster because he can’t use magic to heal but he at least knows about human biology, get <em>anyone </em>you can because you can’t bear the thought of losing Chara, you can’t even think of it.</p><p>“C-C-Chara,” you stammer, speaking to their unconscious form for some reason, even though you don’t know how that’s going to help any. “I-I’m going... I’m going to go. I’m going to get mom... my mom... and she’ll, she’ll heal you, OK, so don’t move...” Your eyes fill with tears, and you lift a paw to your mouth to stop yourself from hyperventilating. “And... and please don’t die. I’ll be... I’ll be right back... I...”</p><p>“Crybaby,” says a voice.</p><p>You blink through the tears and see Chara smiling weakly at you, something achingly close to that ever-present smile of theirs. And, far, far more than your relief that they’re conscious, what you feel is something you’ve never once felt at Chara before: <em>anger.</em></p><p>“What?!” you demand, tears flying off your face as you take a step forward and brandish your paw before placing it against your bare chest. “I did all that and... and you’re just going to make fun of me?!”</p><p>“Certainly, if you’re going to be a crybaby about it,” Chara responds, their flat, droning voice impossible to read, just like always.</p><p>You want to call them a big, fat jerk, or even worse words that you’ve never used but know because Chara taught you them, but somehow, somehow, you still can’t bring yourselves to. Even though they absolutely, absolutely deserve them.</p><p>“I have to go,” you insist, more firmly, trying not to cry all over again. “I have to go get my mom.”</p><p>“No,” Chara says, still in that flat, toneless voice. “Don’t leave me.”</p><p>You swallow. When Chara makes a direct request of you, it’s more like a command, even though you’re never sure which it’s intended to be. No matter what, you’re always so powerless to resist it.</p><p>But not this time.</p><p>“If I don’t get my mom, you’ll...” You swallow, again. “You’ll die.”</p><p>Chara’s smile fades, just a little.</p><p>“I need you,” they say, and it’s touched with just the tiniest edge of sincerity, of <em>longing, </em>that is nonetheless enough to make you feel almost dizzy.</p><p>They need you, you think. They need <em>you.</em></p><p>And... and if you rescue them, you think, if you help them, if you stay by their side... you’ll be their hero. You’ll have saved them. And, if you’re their hero, maybe... maybe they’ll feel the same way about <em>you</em> that you feel about <em>them.</em></p><p>Your voice a quiet whisper, you say, “What do you need me to do?”</p>
<hr/><p>You flinch away when you unwrap your sweater from Chara’s leg. The wound is ugly and gruesome, ugly and gruesome enough that you don’t need to know anything about human injuries to feel sick. Most of the bleeding seems to have stopped, although there’s still a small pool of bloodstains on your old bedsheets, but as Chara requested, you take the cut-up, tied-together strips of an old shirt and start to replace your sweater with the closest thing you have to fresh bandages.</p><p>You can’t help but be curious about something, though, as you force yourself to look at the wound.</p><p>“Chara, wh... what’s that white thing? Sticking out of your leg.”</p><p>Chara hisses as you start to wrap the makeshift bandages around the wound, but then stammers, “W-what? Oh, that. It’s the bone.”</p><p>“What’s a ‘bone’?” you ask, wrapping the former shirt around their leg a second time and tying it a little tighter around the ‘bone.’</p><p><em>“Christ! </em>Be more gentle, would you?!” Chara snaps, and you don’t know who or what a ‘Christ’ is, but you know you’ve screwed up and you flinch like Chara’s just smacked you.</p><p>“S-sorry,” you mutter.</p><p>Chara lets out a resigned sigh. “It’s fine. It’s fine. Sorry for the outburst. It just... hurts.”</p><p>“Sorry,” you say again, because you can’t think of anything else to say.</p><p>Not wanting to ask any more stupid questions, you continue (more carefully this time) wrapping the layers of cut-up shirt around the wound.</p><p>“You don’t have skeletons?” Chara asks after a moment.</p><p>“No?” you ask, not actually sure. You feel a little foolish. “What’s a skeleton?”</p><p>“It’s, uh... hmm.” Chara sounds unusually unsure of themselves, you think, which is good because that means maybe they don't know either. “It’s part of the structure of the body, I guess. It shapes our, uh, insides, so that we aren’t all just noodles flopping around all over the place.”</p><p>“But I’m pretty sure monsters don’t have these... and we aren’t, um, noodles.”</p><p>“That’s because you’re made of magic,” Chara says with a nod, sounding much more sure of themselves than they did a moment ago. “We humans are gross, fleshy meatsacks held together with tape. That’s why we break so easily.”</p><p>“That sounds...” You think of the right word. Disgusting? Fascinating? Weird? <em>Cool? </em>“Inconvenient?”</p><p>“Oh, it is,” Chara says, hissing again and gritting their teeth as you finish tying the shirt around their leg and over the bone. “I’d much rather have been born a monster.”</p><p>“But then...” you say, shooting them a smile. “We’d never have met.”</p><p>Chara smiles back, a sincere, genuine smile. “That’s true. Maybe being human does have its upsides.”</p>
<hr/><p>You put a pillow under Chara’s leg as they instruct, even though you clumsily put your paw on their wound the first time you try to lift it. Chara lays peacefully after that, but they keep flitting in and out of consciousness, and every time they do, you’re so sure it’s because they’re dead. You shake them awake every time, even though they become irritated with you every time you do, because you’re terrified that if they fall asleep for real they won’t wake up.</p><p>“I need to use the restroom,” Chara announces in a tired, dull voice.</p><p>“R-r-restroom?” you stammer.</p><p>“Yes, idiot,” Chara says, rolling their eyes. “Being infirm is humiliating enough without me pissing myself.”</p><p>So you help lift them off your bed, and you carry them on shaking limbs down the hallway to the bathroom your father built. It’s almost, weirdly, nostalgic, helping them walk again, now that you’re calmer and less afraid that you’ve killed them.</p><p>You don’t follow them into the restroom, of course, you just watch as they stumble their way into it and listen closely to make sure they haven’t fallen down. When you’re sure they’ve made it to the toilet, you sigh, sit down, and lay against the doorframe.</p><p>You can’t help but think now of how weird Chara was acting, back in the Ruins. They kept running ahead of you, and not listening to you, and exploring weird places you didn’t normally go. Every time you warned them of a trap, they’d mess with it as if they were trying to set it off.</p><p>...Were they? That’s ridiculous.</p><p>But you can’t help but think of something they told you once, about the mountain you’re all buried under. That “people who climb the mountain never return.”</p><p>You think of the last thing they did when they got hurt. The image is etched into your mind now. It was a puzzle - you had to follow the path of leaves exactly, or else the floor would open up and you’d fall into a pit. There were leaves at the bottom of the pit, but it was a trap intended to kill humans, like all the other traps... so the leaves didn’t exactly make it safe.</p><p>And yet when you’d tried to warn Chara, they’d... stared at the path, turned towards you, smiled, and walked backwards off the path so that the floor opened up underneath them. It was like it was just a fun game to them.</p><p>Maybe it was. Maybe they were just messing around and got hurt. But maybe...</p><p>There’s a knock on the door and you jump out of your skin. But you answer it, and Chara seems less irritated with you as you help them limp their way back to your bedroom and back into your bed. You decide, this time, to let them fall asleep, but you watch them carefully the whole time to make sure they’re still breathing.</p>
<hr/><p>“Asriel,” you hear a voice say, and you wake up with a start to realize you’ve fallen asleep. You rub at your eyes and look at Chara, still sitting on your bed, their leg still on the pillow and in the makeshift bandages you made them.</p><p>“What is it, Chara? Are you OK?”</p><p>“Feverish,” they say, and you get up and place your paw against their forehead. It <em>is </em>very warm. “But that’s not important. There’s something I have to tell you.”</p><p>You swallow. You don’t like this, suddenly - you have what you can only call a very bad feeling.</p><p>“When we were exploring...” they say, staring at you the entire time they say it. “I fell on purpose. I knew I’d get hurt. So I let myself get hurt.”</p><p>You don’t narrow your eyes, and you’re not shocked either. You merely say, “I knew it.” Then you say, and your voice can’t help but have a tinge of anger to it, “Why?”</p><p>“I had a good reason.”</p><p>“<em>Hurting yourself </em>doesn’t have a good reason!” you say, and it’s practically a shout. This isn’t like when they stabbed themselves with a fork that one time - this is completely different. You can’t accept them dying, not for anything. “You could have died, Chara!”</p><p>“But I didn’t,” they say, completely calm as they stare up at you. “I’m still here.”</p><p>“You’re still here because I saved you! You’re still here because I was there to rescue you! And Mom wasn’t there, and Dad wasn’t there, so you could have died anyway!” You feel tears springing to the corners of your eyes. “If I wasn’t there... if I wasn’t...”</p><p>Chara’s ever-present smile, although more tired than it usually is, widens considerably.</p><p>“Exactly.”</p><p>Your voice nearly drops into silence. You can only say a single word.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Don’t you understand?” Chara says, their voice so gentle, so soft, that you listen intently despite how angry you still feel. “I needed you. I need you. I’ll always need you.”</p><p>“I don’t... you’re not making sense.”</p><p>“You’d do anything for me,” Chara continues. “Wouldn’t you? You’d save me. You’d rescue me. You’d heal me. No matter what I did, no matter how I got hurt. Because, after all...” Their smile softens into something peaceful and gentle, just like their voice. “You love me.”</p><p>“I...”</p><p>You take a step backwards. That’s not true. That’s not... you care about them so much, but you... that’s not what it’s like. They’re your best friend, and you would do anything for them, and you want nothing more than to keep them safe, to watch them grow old, to live by their side forever, but... you don’t...</p><p>You don’t...</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>You do.</p><p>You do love them. And you would do anything for them. That’s what love is, isn’t it? That’s what it means to love someone. It’s always in your stories. The brave knights are strong and true and would sacrifice anything for their princesses. The hero stands up for his friends and puts himself in danger and that’s how he gets the girl at the end. The princess puts her life at risk to see through the monster’s ugly appearance and monstrous behavior and see the beauty that’s on the inside of him.</p><p>You take another step back and sit down in your chair. You stare at the ground.</p><p>“It’s romantic, isn’t it?” Chara says.</p><p>And you laugh. It feels fake to your own ears, but you think it’s because the magic in you is rushing through you too fast to think straight.</p><p>“I do this because I love you,” Chara says, and at those simple words, the magic in you feels like it’s going to explode, like you’re going to catch fire. The room feels as hot as the magma of the CORE. “Because I want you to see... that we’re made for each other.”</p><p>“You... you love me?” you repeat.</p><p>“Asriel,” they say, and it’s said with such sincerity, such longing, it feels like your soul is about to tear in two even more than it already does. “You’re the only person in the entire world who matters to me. You’re the only person I have - that I’ve ever had. How could I not love you?”</p><p>You want to protest, still. You want to say that’s not true, that they have your parents, but... the truth is you know exactly how they feel. You’ve thought exactly the same thing. More than anyone, more than even your own parents, Chara is your entire world. Chara is everything.</p><p>“Dance with me,” Chara says. “Pick me up, and dance with me. Just as if we were lovers.”</p><p>You feel yourself nod, and you stand up again. You feel like you’re watching yourself from far away as you put your arms under Chara’s and lift them off the bed, walking backwards so that the both of you are standing in the center of your room.</p><p>Slowly, unsurely, you begin to twirl around them.</p><p><em>As if we were lovers, </em>you think.</p><p>They don’t dance with you. They merely stay within your arms, smiling their ever-present smile, not even so much as blinking. You twirl around and around, again and again, and it’s like dancing with a doll, or even a corpse.</p><p>And yet, you feel... so happy. You feel so happy you could burst.</p><p><em>Lovers, </em>you think again, and you laugh, genuinely and happily, as you continue to twirl with them. <em>They love me. They love me.</em></p><p>You twirl, and twirl, and twirl, even though Chara is limp in your arms, and you don’t realize until you’re too tired to twirl anymore that Chara has fainted.</p>
<hr/><p>You put them back on the bed, and you watch over them, grateful that they’re still breathing. In spite of the churning cauldron of emotions within you, the one thing that stands above the others is still “I love you.” It’s like the rain in Waterfall, falling upon the ground below - every drop saying “I love you, I love you, I love you.”</p><p>You don’t leave their side, even though they don’t regain consciousness, even though you could leave and go fetch your parents to heal them. You don’t want to take the risk that they actually <em>do </em>die, not now, not knowing that they love you as much as you have always loved them.</p><p>Your parents, though, arrive on their own. They burst through the door in a panic, and when you hear them, you run out of the room and shout that you’re here, that Chara was injured, that they need help. You don’t explain <em>how </em>Chara was injured, and they don’t even ask you <em>why </em>you’re out here, in the Ruins, by yourselves, not until Toriel has healed their leg with her magic and she turns on you.</p><p>“Whatever were you thinking, child?” she says, and you know you’re in trouble when she just calls you ‘child.’</p><p>“It was my idea,” you lie to her. “I thought it’d be fun to go explore, but... they got hurt. I’m sorry.”</p><p>“Why did you not get us at once?” she demands. “They could have perished from their injuries. I could have healed them long ago.”</p><p>You know why, but you lie again. “I was too scared. I’m really sorry, Mom. I won’t do it again.”</p><p>She takes a sharp breath and sighs.</p><p>“Very well. But you are still not to leave the house for a month. That includes the garden as well. And, if you ever come here again, I will make it a year.”</p><p>You nod, glumly. You don’t really care all that much about not being able to go back to the Ruins, but... the idea of not being able to go outside at all with Chara, even to the garden, hurts a lot more.</p><p>“My dear,” your father speaks up. “They were...”</p><p>Your mother turns on your father now, and you’ve never once seen her so angry at him.</p><p>“Chara could have <em>died, </em>Asgore. This is not a safe place for children, and it is not the time for coddling.”</p><p>He goes silent, and she turns back to you. You flinch, reflexively, peering out at her through one eye.</p><p>“Dearest one,” she says, and her voice is much more gentle as she crouches down to be at your height. She puts a paw on your shoulder, and you feel so small next to her. “I understand you care for Chara a great deal. I am not punishing you to hurt you. I am punishing you only to keep them safe. Do you understand?”</p><p>You nod.</p><p>“Promise me,” she says. “Promise me you will not allow them to come to harm again.”</p><p>“I promise.”</p>
<hr/><p>Chara takes the River Person home with the rest of your family. As the two of you ride down the river connecting the various parts of the Underground, they turn to you and whisper.</p><p>“Asriel,” they say. They look towards your parents, but your parents are talking amongst each other and don’t look back.</p><p>“Did you really mean it?” you whisper back, immediately. “When you said...?”</p><p>“Every word,” Chara replies. “Do you, then? Do you love me?”</p><p>You don't hesitate.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Then...” they say. They take off their necklace, the locket in the shape of an upside-down heart that matches the twin that you always wear, and they hold it up, between you. “If you truly love me, promise me. Promise me, with all your heart... that, when the time comes, you’ll do what is necessary.”</p><p>You don’t hesitate. You take your own locket from around your neck and press it against theirs with a soft <em>clink. </em></p><p>“I will.”</p><p>♥♥♥♥♥</p><p>You look at Asriel from across the room of your shared bedroom, from where he’s sleeping. You can’t stand to be in his bed, where you usually sleep. You can’t bear to have him wrap his arms around you as the hours pass. Not tonight, of all nights.</p><p>You take off your locket and stare at it, as it spins around placidly. You pop it open, and see the words you etched on the inside with your knife - BEST FRIENDS FOREVER.</p><p>You scoff. Ridiculous.</p><p>You’re not his friend. You don’t deserve to be his friend, not now, not ever, and certainly not for all time. You don’t deserve to love him, to feel that affection for another person, but you certainly don’t deserve to love someone as good and kind and pure as he is. It’s obvious he loves you back, that he loves you more than words can say - that he loves you so much he’s willing to give up everything he has to be with you, that he’d give up his own life for you if you so much as asked. But the very thought fills you with venomous hatred and disgust, a dulled rage directed all towards yourself.</p><p>He deserves better than to love someone like you, after all. He deserves everything in the world. Everything you can’t give him.</p><p>
  <em>Promise me you’ll do what is necessary.</em>
</p><p>You really are the scum of the Earth.</p>
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